This invention relates to sound recording devices.
There are available in the market a variety of different kinds of sound recording devices intended for use in offices, medical facilities and so forth. For example, compact portable recorders which record voice signals on a tape cassette or a removable solid state memory card are in wide-spread use. Desk-top recorders are also widely used. Typical desk-top recorders include a desk-top unit which includes a tape-cassette deck or a receptacle for a memory card, and a hand microphone which is connected to the desk-top unit by a cord or cable.
It is also known to employ central dictation systems of the type in which the recording medium (such as a magnetic tape or a computer hard disk) is housed in a central recording unit that is located remotely from users of the system. Dictation terminals including a handset are provided at the user locations and are connected to the central recording unit by telephone or dedicated communication lines.
It is customary that portable recorders, hand microphones and dictation terminal handsets include, in addition to a microphone, a number of manually operable switches which permit the user to control basic functions such as record, stop, play, rewind and fast forward. It would be desirable to increase the number of functions controlled through the user interface, but without increasing the number of control switches, since increasing the number of switches is likely to increase the size and manufacturing cost of the portable recorder, hand microphone, or dictation terminal.